In Praise of Kudzu

Just a note for those of you who don't hail from the American South. Kudzu is very green and amazingly hardy vine that is native to the far east, Japan especially. In the 1920s or thereabouts, the US government began paying farmers to grow kudzu in the south as a way to encourage the cultivation of a "good source of protein" for desperately poor and soon to be more desperately poor southerners (The Great Depression hit in 1929 for those not familiar with American history). In the 1970s, kudzu was recognized as a threat to southern forests, farms, homes, etc. and reclassified as a "weed". Just another brilliant example in the long history of farsighted environmental policy in the states. Kudzu is now quite literarly eating the South and botanist cannot find anything that kills the stuff. It grows one foot per day in the growing season by the way. Some herbicides actually appear to enhance the stuff. One more thing, this is truly the only humorous poem I've ever tried to write. If it sucks, I promise never ever to do it again. LOL

I should know better by now but I couldn't resist a major edit on this even though I can hardly keep my eyes open. I'm crazy no doubt. Let me know if I wrecked it. Thanks!

On those long weary
trips when the car
droned endlessly
from one hilltop
to the next, stern
father demanding
silent children.

I without
even a book to read,
engulfed by molasses
minutes reading the road
signs or license plates,
the odd billboard,
or anything at all,
until I discovered
the virtue in a mysterious
green and nameless
stranger.

Wondrous shapes
to child eyes,
herds of green–
the curious zebra
and shy giraffe
roaming up
and down
the piedmont,
watching us pass
while leaning
on power poles
or peeking
over split rails.

Prides of lion
and wolf pack
marauding
over forgotten
homes and barns,
sometimes ruling
the rusted hulks
in salvage yards.

The grownups
cursed this invader
from the “east”
not Georgia but Japan!
They named the beast
“kudzoo”. Befitting
it seemed for the endless
menagerie and fit
fodder for bovine
rumination.

So now I write
in praise of kudzu,
our green invader,
for the gentle memories
of adventurous vision
on those otherwise
tortuous trips,
for the green embrace
of one curious child,
homage then to the mighty
vine that ate the South.